EDITORIAL

Spring Training for Dems

Pundits are complaining about the surplus of Democratic
presidential candidates. The South Carolina debate brought the
predictable judgement of "not ready for prime time." But our view of
the debate was that any of the nine Democratic candidates would make
a better president than George W. Bush -- if the Dems get their act
together.

The scouting report suggests that Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Dick
Gephardt will compete for the progressive populist/New Deal wing of
the Democratic Party. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean will pitch for
the anti-war center/left but needs to loosen up. John Edwards, the
North Carolina senator from South Carolina, showed he can talk the
populist talk, as a trial lawyer who is unafraid to take on big
corporations, pharmaceutical companies and HMOs, but he hasn't gotten
much past sound bites so far. Sen. John Kerry showed he can hit but
needs to work on the charisma thing. Sen. Joe Lieberman showed a
sense of humor to go with his center-righteous politics. Sen. Bob
Graham was amiable and appeared to be running mainly for vice
president. Carol Braun, the former Illinois senator, made a good
impression, if you were unaware of some of the disastrous personal
choices that led to her 1998 re-election defeat. Al Sharpton (we
suspend the use of the honorific "reverend" during political
campaigns), showed he has talent to become the Alan Keyes of the
Democratic race.

John Harwood, political editor of the Wall Street Journal, wrote
on the eve of the debate that Kucinich, Braun and Sharpton had no
good reason to be included. That says more about the poor quality of
political journalism than it does about the quality of the
candidates. If Sharpton, the candidate with the weakest resume, by
some miracle wins the nomination he would still compare favorably
with the Rolodex Cowboy from Crawford, Texas. Sharpton, like Bush,
has made questionable statements in order to fan self-serving
conflicts, but as far as we know Sharpton never deserted a military
unit during time of war, so the gentleman from New York gets the
nod.

Ready or not, the 2004 campaign season has started. If you want
to promote progressive populist issues in the Democratic presidential
campaign, support Gephardt (www.dickgephardt2004.com, phone
202-448-9300) or Kucinich (www.kucinich.us, phone 866-413-3664). Your
choice probably will depend on whether or not you thought the war in
Iraq was a good idea. Even if you think Dean, Kerry or Edwards would
make a better nominee next year, if you want to hear those candidates
address a progressive agenda, work to make sure Kucinich and Gephardt
remain in the debates.

Health care got some welcome attention in the debate. Max
Sawicky, the friendly progressive populist economist, provided a
useful examination of the health care proposals at
(www.maxspeak.org/gm). He noted that with 40-something-million
Americans lacking health insurance and tens of millions more
underinsured, there are basically two ways to go. Gephardt builds
upon the existing system wherein health insurance for workers and
their families is provided by employers. Kucinich would use a payroll
tax to expand Medicare, the national single-payer system for seniors,
to cover all Americans. Dean, attempting to split the difference,
would expand Medicaid to children and young adults under the age of
23, add a prescription drug benefit for the elderly within Medicare
and offer coverage to others with subsidies to businesses and
individuals so workers could obtain health insurance "in the
market."

Gephardt would offer a 60% tax credit for health insurance and
pay for it by repealing the 2001 tax cut for the wealthy. Sawicky
noted that if a business pays 35% corporate income tax, a dollar
spent on health care costs 65 cents. Under Gephardt's plan a dollar
spent on health insurance costs the firm only 40 cents.

John Edwards took pot shots at the Gephardt plan as a big
transfer of tax dollars from the pockets of working families to the
nasty corporations, with the sound bite, "You're in good hands with
Enron." As Sawicky noted, "If you reject socialized medicine, the
only way to provide group insurance is through employers. The only
way they will do that is with financial incentives, or if they are
forced to do it. Is Edwards prepared to support the latter? Don't
hold your breath." Edwards says he is for universal coverage, but
doesn't say how he would get there.

Joe Lieberman said he would not raise taxes to pay for health
coverage and charged that Gephardt would take money out of the Social
Security Trust Fund. Sawicky says the opposite is the case.
"Providing a tax cut to corporations would increase taxable income,
in some combination, to workers and business firms."

Kerry's health care plan apparently consists mainly of providing
a "Patient's Bill of Rights," which Sawicky noted is no help if you
have no coverage, since then you will have no rights. Lieberman,
Braun, Graham, and Sharpton also apparently lack plans for covering
the prime-age uninsured.

Stop the Bush Tax Cut

George W. Bush and the Republican Party have made it an article of
faith that tax cuts to the wealthy will stimulate the economy. They
ignore the fact that we are in a recession because businesses cannot
sell the products that already are in their inventories. Until that
capacity is relieved, you can't expect businesses to expand.

Harry K. Schwartz, a former corporate lawyer who served in the
Carter administration, wrote in The Hill on May 7 that bigger
corporations that traditionally declare dividends will be the winners
under Bush's proposal to make corporate dividends tax-free. Smaller
corporations who reinvest their earnings in new technologies and
expansion will feel more pressure to pay dividends instead. "If you
were trying to design an anti-stimulus package for a no-growth
economy, this would be a good way to go about it," he wrote.

The best way to stimulate the economy would be for Congress to
divert the money Bush wants to throw at the wealthy and instead send
it to workers, small businesses and state and local governments who
need billions of dollars to maintain health, education and welfare
programs. Democrats are on the right track with their proposal for a
wage tax credit of $300 per family member, up to $1,200 per family, a
small business tax credit for health insurance premiums, aid to state
and local governments and extension of jobless benefits.

In Texas, Bush as governor cut taxes for the wealthy during times
of plenty and pushed more responsibility onto city and county
governments. Now that the state faces a $10 billion shortfall,
Republicans have ruled out any tax increases. To make up that gap,
Texas lawmakers plan draconian cuts, including 250,000 children from
the Children's Health Insurance Program. If that program is cut back,
not only must working poor parents fret about how they will pay for
their children's needed health care; nurses, doctors and other health
care professionals will be laid off at clinics, hospitals and nursing
homes. Families USA estimates that the Democrats' proposed $18
billion temporary increase in Medicaid payments to states over the
next year would create -- or preserve from state budget cuts --
at least 268,000 jobs, largely in the health care delivery sector.

Texas bases its estimates of future prison needs on the number of
students who flunk standardized tests in the third grade. Like the
adage says, you can pay now or you can pay later -- good schools
and jobs now in the inner cities as well as the suburbs or more
guards and more cells in the boondocks. Unfortunately, new prisons
are represented by the prison industry as promising more jobs in
depressed rural areas. We still think we can do better by diverting
those future prisoners into more productive pursuits when they are in
the school system and developing rural communities in other ways.
-- JMC